Scrapbooking Material From Surprising Sources

While I don't scrapbook, my new sewing machine gave me tons of scrapbooking materials, if I was inclined! The manufacturer published a second full manual in a language I don't speak or understand. I can cut that up for scrapbooking pages - there's diagrams, pictures, line art, and frames that would be cool to use.

The machine was also covered in stickers, to help keep it secure and nice during shipping. Again, I could use those in my layouts. I could even use those to tack down the images of the sewing machine!

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Even old phonebooks have cool clip art and color designs in them, and using local images or pieces that are meaningful to you has to mean a more fun scrapbook!

All else fails, I could take my own notes using the images from the unused manual as a reference. Or show off the newest 'toy' in the house to long-distance friends.

There's a lot you can do with old stuff - or books you can't even read!

The thing is about using odd papers for scrapbooking is the really serious scrapbookes want to use special, acid free paper for their projects. Most magazines, etc. aren't published on that type of paper. I guess the type of paper a person would use would be determined by the type of scrap book they were making and how long they want the contents to stay nice. The genealogy scrapbooks that I am making for myself, I even copy newspaper clippings onto acid free paper, instead of using the actual clipping.

And don't forget to check out any Oriental Markets or Latino Food Stores which might have flyers printed in Chinese or Spanish. We have several large markets of both types near us, and I've often made envelopes using their interesting

printed material to send letters snail-mail to my children. The grandchildren especially get a big kick out of these envelopes. I also save all postage stamps which come from other countries, place them all randomly on a piece of 8 1/2 X 11 paper, scan and print out several copies at one time.

Then make envelopes using that paper. All of this would work just as well in scrapbooks or travel journals and the interesting material I use is all free, the best price I know of. I love all paper crafts. Nice to hear how others are